“The End Of Us” Is A Pandemic Movie That’s Not About The Pandemic
On today's episode of BuzzFeed Daily, we broke down the top pop culture headlines AND discussed the quarantine rom-com The End of Us. You can listen below or scroll down to read more about the interview!
So let's dive right into it! Recently we talked to Ali Vingiano and Ben Coleman, stars of the new movie The End of Us. Here's some of our conversation:
BuzzFeed Daily: So without spoiling too much for our listeners, what is this movie about?
Ben Coleman: So it's a World War Two story. No, it's about a couple who, as COVID kind of took over LA and lockdown went into play, breaks up and is forced to live together and quarantine together for several months into the pandemic. And I actually have some kind of connection with that — I did go through a similar experience in my personal life. I'm very close friends with Steven Kanter and Henry Loevner, the directors, and I was going through that, so it definitely had something to do with the inception of the idea. Not necessarily the characters, but yeah, it's about a couple who has kind of run its course and decides to end it at the absolute worst time and try to kind of move on without moving out, as the logline suggests.
Ali Vingiano: I'll just add that what the movie is about is people who are stuck in their circumstances; struggling to move forward in their life and aren't really sure how difficult it is to decide when to move on; and when love sort of shifts forms. And you know, this is a couple who do love each other, but how do you know when to break up? And I don't want to give away the ending, but [love] can come in different forms. And it's seeing these people trying to move on with their life and also genuinely caring about each other and wanting the best for each other.
BuzzFeed Daily: Ali, how did you get involved with this project?
AV: So this was like early quarantine. We shot this a year and a half ago, and I was just sitting on my couch, wondering what to do with my day, seeing what meal I could try to learn to cook or where I could get the new fruit I needed in Animal Crossing, and Steven and Henry called me and were basically like, "So we have this idea."
Ben was already attached to it because it came from his own personal story. So they were like, "We want to make this movie. Do you want to act in it?" And there wasn't even a script, and I was scared. At first, I was like, "Well, what about COVID? How are we going to do this?" I hadn't seen anybody except for my partner. And once we worked all that stuff out, I was like, "Yes, I'm in." And they sent me an outline. I sort of gave some thoughts on it, and they came back to me with a more detailed outline, and that's really how it happened. So when we moved into the house we were working off this really detailed outline. And I think it was a month after I initially agreed to it that we were in production.
BuzzFeed Daily: The chemistry between the two of you is really great. I fully believe that you were a couple who used to be in love and now can't stand each other. And you both worked at BuzzFeed, as did the writers and directors, and BuzzFeed actually produced the film. So do you think that everyone knowing each other helped your onscreen dynamic?
AV: Oh my god, yes. So much. I think that's why the film ultimately works is that we all knew each other and had worked together before, and we all trusted each other. I just had no doubt in my mind that I would not only love the experience of working with [Steven and Henry], but be proud of the result. And with Ben, I think that's why they cast us — they...already knew our dynamic. They could already sort of picture the film because we'd worked together at BuzzFeed and had done all these relationship videos. We'd done all these fighting videos. We love to fight with each other. That was like the main thing we did in our videos. So I think they were like, "Oh, we could get these two and make them fight for an hour."
BC: Yeah, it was like a real deep relationship character study. We didn't realize we were kind of building towards this movie the whole time, but it really worked out well. It was a blast.
BuzzFeed Daily: Ben, your character in the movie is an actor in LA. How much of that did you pull from your actual life experience?
BC: Well, I would say his experience is a very exaggerated version of my own. In the movie, he's getting asked to do auditions for cruise line performances and weird student films. That's not really something that I personally went through. I was more drawing from, what it's like to live with an ex during quarantine rather than the actual professional side that he shows in the movie. But I took a lot from personal experience. The character did seem like a much goofier, weirder version of myself. So it was fun to kind of explore what was going on in my actual life through the lens of a different character and I walked away at the end of the project with a new view of my own relationship. It was just a wild experience all around.
BuzzFeed Daily: And Ali, you're an accomplished writer in your own right. (You work on The Morning Show.) So what was it like coming to this project as an actor this time?
AV: I thought acting was something I was done with after I got staffed on The Morning Show. I was focusing on writing and I had acted in my BuzzFeed videos and didn't really pursue it after I left BuzzFeed. Getting this opportunity just to act and like play and improvise and — I mean, I did obviously give my thoughts and notes on story stuff, but at some point, I just took a step back and I was like, "I'm releasing myself from this. This is not my job on this set. I'm not going to be there pitching all day on how I would do it."
BuzzFeed Daily: When you were making this, a movie about the pandemic during the pandemic, did it feel just a little too close to home? Or was it just actually cathartic?
BC: That's a good question. I think we were definitely mindful of the fact that there was a pandemic happening outside, and we wanted this story to kind of touch on it gracefully. But in terms of there being a fear of this being too close to home? I think it was a healthy fear of like, "Let's make an authentic story that acknowledges this thing that we're all going through without taking any cheap shots." But yeah, I think that we were aware of that and hopefully steered in a direction that was kind of a way to look at it and not feel too overwhelmed or fearful, and was a way to kind of feel this comforted sense of like, "This is what we all went through together." And I think that's what we were able to capture — not necessarily nostalgia, but I know I've heard, when people watch it, they kind of feel seen and heard and just reminded of this is a thing that we all went through together and we're still going through.
AV: I have heard that people who've seen it [experience] this weird feeling of nostalgia because it was such a different time, in the early pandemic, and seeing it, you're like, "Oh, right, we did use to wipe down our groceries." And I think enough time has passed that people have talked to me after they've seen it and have been like, "Wow, it really captured this period that I actually was surprised that I loved watching." But when we were making it, it didn't feel like something I was afraid of. It just felt like we were creating something from our reality. My biggest fear was, how are we going to handle this? I didn't want to be making light of this thing — people are dying. We definitely had conversations about the severity of it. And ultimately, what I love about the movie is it takes place during the pandemic, but it's not about the pandemic — it's about this relationship. And it really centers the emotional story and it centers these characters. The pandemic isn't the reason why anyone is going to watch this movie — it's just part of the world in the background. So when we were making it, I think we were too present in the moment to even think like how it would be perceived. But I didn't feel a sense of like, "Oh, this is too close to home." That's how you create. Who's ever created something that's like, "Oh, I wrote about my breakup, but it was too close to home," or "Oh, I wrote about my trauma and it was too close to home." It's like, No, you write what you know. You write what you're experiencing, and that's how art is made." So I don't think it felt too close to home from a perspective of viewership.
BuzzFeed Daily: Thank you both so much for joining us. Where can our listeners watch the movie?
BC: You can watch it anywhere you download or rent movies: Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube.
We also talked about how, on a recent episode of the BBC podcast Woman’s Hour, The Crown star Claire Foy revealed how she feels about filming sex scenes.
"It's a really hard line because basically you do feel exploited when you are a woman and you are having to perform fake sex on screen," she said. "You can't help but feel exploited. It's grim — it's the grimmest thing you can do. You feel exposed. Everyone can make you try to not feel that way, but it's, unfortunately, the reality."
